First, Merry Christmas to all of you around the world.  I'm certainly ready for some "peace on earth, goodwill to all" ...

Here's one of my New Zealand videos .. I can't believe this video is nearly a decade old now:

Napier .. 9 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db4nMTVkNDg

Got it.  I never gave much thought to scripts -- sort of take them for granted -- this reminded me when I was young I worked for "Mortuary Management Magazine" and learned to run an offset press in our direct mail division.  Seems to me we did have some old typesetting printers that were at the end of their lives.  I thought the letterpress was Multigraph, but not sure.   I might have actually done some typeset, backwards. Our script was Latin, I guess.

Right Albert.  At least on my Android Phone (Samsung not an iPhone).  Pressing and holding the button generates a sound but does not take the picture.  Releasing the button takes the picture and makes a second sound.  If you tap the button quickly it takes the picture AND you hear the sound.   I've had this type phone for ages and never realized that.

>>Suppose for example, an experiment were desired to be to have an AI system produce the text of a play in the style of >>Shakespeare, about, say, the Spanish Armada, which was in 1588 and a TV movie produced of a performance of the play.

>>How would that be achieved? Would the AI system output the text and people need to learn the script, get dressed up in >>costume and act the play while other people videoed it, or would the AI system produce the TV movie as a completed >>product?

The answer would be up to you.  The AI would write whatever you wish according to your prompt.  The output may not be acceptable to you and you'd have to refine this with additional prompts.  It might also be the case that no amount of refining would give you an output you like.  But the job of the AI is to assistant.  It is not meant to replace human output, especially in creative matters. 

Length limitations do exist in the free versions of AI.  ChatGTP is limited to something like 4000 to 5000 words for output.  But you could do a scene by scene output to arrive at a TV movie script. 

I don't think there is an AI capable of generating video output as a completed product.  This might be possible in the future using things like Computer-generated imagery (CGI animation).  Disney made a wonderful version of the Lion King where the animals looked absolutely real.  It was stunning in its detail.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TavVZMewpY

I'm sure Disney is working toward a specialized AI model that will do what you suggest.   

I'm using CHATGTP to help me with my latest little 5 min movie.  It's given me some good ideas.  I don't expect it to give me a finished product.

So William.  What are your thoughts regarding generative AI?  Some say it is as important as the invention of the wheel.  What do you say?

>>Is the word 'admit' the right word here?

I used the word "admit" because of the on going discussion concerning the safety of AI.  I wanted to impart a sense of controversy in the idea that those creating and releasing AI large language models are going full speed ahead despite their lack of understanding of how their own creation works.  The call for a pause went unheeded despite the "admission" that, yes, we don't yet understand how it works.

Good God! You've generated far more than I can handle.  But I'll try. 

Meanwhile, I flashed on an idea for a "prompt" to get ChatGPT 3.5 to write a parody.  Of course this little piece only plays well for those familiar with Mister Smallweed in Bleak House.

write one paragraph, in the first person, in the style of Charles Dickins as follows: Mister Smallweed tries to convince his granddaughter, Judy, that he means to sell everything and become a dentist so he can inflict misery on his betters and get paid to do it. End things with "shake me up Judy!"

Judy, my dear," croaked Mister Smallweed with a wicked glint in his eye, his gnarled hands cradling a ledger that chronicled the manifold machinations of his questionable enterprises, "the time has come for a change in our fortunes. No more shall we tread the precarious path of usury and subterfuge. Nay, I've concocted a grand scheme to ascend to the esteemed profession of dentistry, a realm where the infliction of misery is not only sanctioned but compensated! Imagine, my child, the power to extract not merely coin but teeth with impunity, to torment those high and mighty enough to seek solace in the clutches of my dental chair. It shall be a most satisfying endeavor, replete with a pecuniary reward that rivals our most audacious endeavors hitherto. We shall become masters of the molar, extracting not only molten gold but the sweet nectar of revenge upon our perceived betters. Oh, the sweet symphony of agony and profit shall herald our ascent, and I shall be the maestro of both!  Shake me up, Judy!"

Doesn't this sound like it was written by a human?

>>However AI needs to be treated with caution ....it is my theory and I wrote about it in the High-Logic forum and the AI
>>system had found what I had written many years ago and was now telling me about it as if it answered my inquiry, though I
>>suppose it did really.

You've hit on an important point.  AI's cannot be fully trusted.  Not yet.

William .. I should have mentioned "moveable type" and other things too but the point was not to make a list or rank these things but to make the point that AI will eventually have a similar impact to these types of HUGE discoveries. 

Regards the video production, in my video, Romulus, there is only one actor (me) doing both parts against a green screen.  It's a bit of movie magic (chromakey) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_key that is now available on almost any video editing software.   I shot the old man scientist during COVID times where I let my hair grow long.  Immediately after I cut my hair, I shot the other character, Romulus, the AI robot.  Basically, I work alone.  This "one-man-band" method has its drawbacks but generally I like it. 

In the Romulus story I did try to give the impression that Romulus has been getting closer and closer to consciousness.  But I suppose when something like this "actually" happens, the idea of an AI being conscious will be difficult to pin down.  But in my story, I had to move things along.  The audience is generally ahead of the story anyway, but hopefully you can still surprise them a bit.  The Star Trek stories had the same problem.  It would have been boring to see Moriarty gradually become self-aware.  How do you show that without being boring?  In any case, isn't there a moment when it happens, when you "cross the rubicon"?

Paul

William .. I think I've seen Elementary, Dear Data but have forgotten everything except the Sherlock Holmes reference.  I should be able to stream these two episodes today (isn't streaming wonderful?) and then we'll be on the same page.

>>I note that it is currently listed as

>> 39 views 8 months ago.

I don't promote my videos.  I do them for the fun of it and for family and friends. 

Back to you once I see the Star Trek's you mentioned. 

Is it the idea of AI's becoming self-aware (conscious) that's the point?

Paul

>> Incidentally David Lean's prop master Eddie Fowlie lived there and ran a hotel until he died a few years back. I have a signed book of his exploits and a lot of Lawrence of Arabia was actually filmed just down the road, and there is a memorial statue of Eddie in the high street. 

Gordon .. you mentioned the great Eddie Fowlie.  Back in my younger Hollywood days, I worked for Ilya Salkind and Pierre Spengler in Hungary.   They were doing a picture called "Crossed Swords", a remake of the old Mark Twain story, Prince and the Pauper.  I was shooting a "featurette" of the production as it had an all-star cast including four men who had won "best actor" Oscars.  Eddie had worked for the Salkinds on Three Musketeers and was hired again to do Props and Special Effects in Hungary where the show was being shot with mostly a Hungarian crew from MaFilm and a skelton key-man British crew.   Part of the technical challenge was that the story called for Mark Lester, who was playing the Prince and the Pauper too, had to shake hands with himself.  I'm not sure if Eddie had anything to do with that, but he was always about the set solving problems and, if I remember, correctly, keeping Oliver Reed from trouble.  What a nice man -- Eddie I mean.